We know by now that we have to listen before we jump into social media. But the question I often get asked is how? I just got an email from a friend today who is in NYC at a conference and she said “I am looking for concrete answers and all I get is platitudes!”
What to Listen For:
In order to listen well you have to decide what you are looking for. Start with your company name, brand names, competitors and add generic terms that describe your business and/or your product
Example: a skin care company should also listen for mentions of skin care, dry skin, aging, anti aging, wrinkle cream etc. You can do some keyword research to see what phrases people are searching for, or look into your own analytics to see what words and phrases people search to find your website.
Free Tools
The most basic tool is RSS. You can set up a dashboard using something as simple as an iGoogle page.
You can see how to do this in this short video
Another tool you can use to make a great dashboard is NetVibes. Here is a video on how to set it up.
And watch this video I made to show you how to do the searches
Do the searches in Google BlogSearch, Twitter, Yahoo News, and other social websites like Technorati, digg.com, StumbleUpon and Delicious
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for these searches and pull the data into your RSS reader. Watch the video of how to do this
There are other free tools that can help you listen to conversations
Backtype
IceRocket
SocialMention
Paid Tools
There are many monitoring tools on the market now. Each one has its own set of features and pricing structure
BuzzLogic Insights
Radian 6
Buzzmetrics
Trackur
Visible Technologies
Cision
Techrigy (review from TechCrunch)
Sysomos Read the review by Dave Fleet
Jive Software They integrated Filtrbox into their Jive Market Engagement Solution.
Getting Value from Listening Tools
Smart social media gal Liz Strauss posted this article about how to get the most from listening tools. It’s a must-read for anyone involved in this activity
Image credit: K Y Olsen
